UNION NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 460, 5 June 1909, Page 3

UNION NOTES.

[This column is edited by the Fliixmills Employees* Union Executive. All matters for publication under this head must be forwarded to the Secretary of the Union,!

The President of the New Zealand Flaxmillers’ Association, was in Foxton on Thursday last. Presumably further offers of contracts will be forthcoming to the local scutchers in the early future ! COUGH UP.

By to-day’s mail the Secretary is posting to .each member requiring it, a note showing his financial position. We would urge upon all recipients the necessary of prompt remittance. Don’t say to yourself “its only a couple of shillings’’ and postpone payment. It only needs a hundred of you to do that to make us shy to the tune of a tenner. Our financial year ends with this month and we are anxious to be in the pleasant position of having all members on our books right up to date with ' their payments. A GOOD EXAMPLE. In the issue of the Bulletin for

27th May, just to hand, there is an exceptional interesting article by ' J. D. Fitzgerald upon “wealth in tropical culture.” A lot of valuable information is given as to the Government experimental farms of Queensland, where “such valuable products as fibres are specially experimented with, and a large distribution takes place annually as fast as the plants are available. In fibres Bombay, Maroa and Mawitons hemp grow freely and the plants are distributed. All the fibre-producing plants are, says the 1907 report, doing well, and plants or seed are available. There is not slightest doubt that the state quoted above will within measurable time become a considerable if not a dangerous competor to our local fibre and it would seem something of a pity that,our own Government cannot do more in the way of experimental work in growing and crossing the different varieties of flax than they have hitherto done. AN ACCIDENT. We regret to have to record that whilst feeding the machine at Mr J. Rose’s mill, one of our members, Mr D. McFarlane, had the misfortune to get his finger caught in the rollers and rather severely crushed, which necessitated its amputation. The accident happened about 4.30 on Thursday afternoon. AT THE COURT. Mr Green of the Poplar mill, confessed judgment to two breaches of the Award. (1) Not paying award wages on Good Friday and Easter Monday, (2) Engaging a man as rouseabout and paying him off at 15s per •week and tucker. A full account of the case appears elsewhere in this issue. NO CIGARS IN IT.

At the S.M. Court in Wellington last Tuesday, the presiding Magistrate declined to make an order against a debtor who was earning £2 5s per week. In refusing to make the order his Worship remarked that he, personally, would not like to risk it oh £2 5s a week and keep a wife and two children. ‘‘There could

be no smoking of cigars” concluded his Worship meaningly. In fact, as we said last week, it is just a case of “to be —to endure.”

But in this connection it is interesting to refer to the scale of dctual wages paid by Mr Ross quoted recently in this paper. It will be found that on reference many of the workers under award rates did not average this sum per week throughout the year. Hence, according to his Worship’s remarks on Tuesday last, the clause in our award regarding the smoking of cigars would appear to be useless ! But it is a terrible sarcasm on our much-vaunted civilisation, when a man has to make his choice between tobacco and matrimony, to declare in favour of either “the wee little puny god Bove, or the great god Nick O’Teen” as Kipling puts it.